The silence in the youth room was near deafening. And it wasn’t just the teens that were visibly uncomfortable. What started for me as a slightly less than critical self-assessment of faith in practice, turned into serious examination of my relationship with God and the Four Last Things.
Have I loved God with my whole heart and soul? How have I (or have I?) introduced my neighbor to the love of Christ? As I grappled with these questions – looking over my life and the prospect of an eternity with or without God – I felt more than a little unsure that the evidence to convict me indeed existed …
Who would testify on my behalf? Who would be my witness?
Sacred Scripture tells us that the testimony of two or three reliable witnesses is required as evidence to convict (Deut 19:15; Mt 18:16). As if to underscore the point, Jesus always seemed to keep His faithful disciples – Peter, James, and John – close by when He wished to reveal something extraordinary about Himself. Credible witnesses perfect and help serve justice.
But history teaches us that witnessing can be hazardous to your health, too. There was no Witness Protection Program for the prophets in the Old Testament, for Lazarus or John the Baptist. Jesus said that the very reason He was born and came into the world was to testify to the truth. But that testimony got Him abandoned, rejected, humiliated, convicted, and ultimately, crucified. Countless Christian martyrs from the first century onward shared the same fate. Since His disciples are held to the standard He set, they may passively see, hear, and believe, but then must actively witness – without compromise – to what they came to know by faith.
This contrast between passive and active witnessing is even more profound than between noun and verb. Think of it as the difference between just seeing a hit-and-run car accident from the sidewalk and writing down the license plate number for the police; between being present at an event or hearing a word and allowing that word or event to move or change us.
St. Thomas Aquinas might say that our potential for becoming disciples is actualized by a credible witness – or activated by the message. We in turn as disciples, by becoming living testimonies to the truth, serve the cause of another’s progress towards discipleship. And on and on it goes. (Our Youth Minister’s mantra is appropriately: “Disciples make disciples.”) This is how God, the Unmoved Mover, moves: through us. It all seems so obvious and, of course, what it means to be a member of the Body of Christ. It also makes it easier to understand, from a physiological standpoint, why separating ourselves from the Body results in death. (Sustaining the volunteer/missionary way of life becomes virtually impossible for those who choose to ‘go it alone.’)
Actions speak louder than words. When trying to evangelize, words (alone) – today, if ever – won’t cut it. Jesus Himself understood the power of visual over auditory recognition, and what it would take for most if not all of His followers to believe: He fulfilled the Messianic prophecies by feeding the multitudes, calming the waters, curing the blind, the sick, the lame, the leper. In John 10:38 He said: “Even though you do not believe Me, believe the works.” And a chapter later: “… those who had seen what Jesus had done began to believe in Him.” (John 11:45) His actions provided the witness to His divinity. Archbishop Robert J. Carlson said, “His words give us something to believe in, while His deeds give us a reason to believe Him.”
Of course, seeing and hearing aren’t always believing, and believing doesn’t necessarily bring about a metanoia – that change of heart which precipitates action.
Franciscan priest and author Brennan Manning once said: “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians – who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” Pope Francis often reminds us that the world is longing for a credible, authentic witness. But sadly, even most Christians don’t know what that witness looks like; some may not even realize that they too are called to be missionaries, to live lives of heroic virtue. These shortcomings are most certainly why St. John Paul II called for a ‘New Evangelization.’ He wrote in his encyclical Redemptoris Missio: “The witness of a Christian life is the first and irreplaceable form of mission.”
We live in a pagan culture. Our homes, our workplaces, our neighborhoods are our mission field. We’ve been given our directive; the need is great and readily apparent, and (hopefully) our intentions are pure. So, what keeps us from acting on our convictions (what sociologists have termed “The Bystander Effect”)? Well, sometimes we feel less personal responsibility to act when we are one among many witnesses. Other times the need seems just too great – we feel we can’t make a difference or any progress towards resolution. Pride, prejudice, fear, embarrassment, etc. may help convince us that it’s not our responsibility. Or in pluralistic ignorance we may even conclude that there is no emergency at all.
Although this behavior may be built in – part of our sinful human makeup – acting in the face of need is nonetheless teachable. Recall that even after Jesus’ Resurrection the disciples seemed ready to go back to their old way of life. But in the end the Holy Spirit (the Counselor) at Pentecost changed them from despairing cowards into joyful martyrs, from passive to active witnesses. He can work the same way in us today, if we allow Him to.
For we who have let the unbelieving world convince us that there is no emergency or that we can have no substantive effect on it, living a life of heroic virtue sounds daunting, nay impossible. (Speaking for myself, after so many failed opportunities to witness to Christ, part of me is afraid I’ll never get another chance and part of me is afraid that I will.) But our eternal salvation absolutely depends on it! For at the Last Judgment – our day in court – we will stand alone before the Just Judge, our actions providing our only witness.
We can do all things in Him Who strengthens us. As we humbly acknowledge our failures – intentional or no – to be missionaries, we must pray for the courage to get off the sidelines and make ourselves vulnerable. As any successful businessman will say, without risk there is no reward; nothing ventured, nothing gained. We must also be prepared for the possibility of hardship and setback, for no servant is greater than his master. As it was with the countless Christian martyrs throughout the centuries (and Jesus before them), ultimately it will be by the grace of God in our ‘failure,’ rejection, and humiliation – our witness to the truth – that the hearts and minds of many will be opened to the desire for God.
Bill Rysavy
Holy Name Society
Archdiocese of St. Paul / Minneapolis
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